


Surprise

by EmJ93



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 19:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18971455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmJ93/pseuds/EmJ93
Summary: Aloth tries his hand at baking to surprise The Watcher on her birthday... and ends up recruiting some help from Vela.





	Surprise

He hadn’t expected it to be so difficult.

How hard could it possibly be, he had asked himself, if he had everything laid out for him? A recipe was essentially a list of instructions, after all, and he had always been good at following instruction. One could even argue that it was a routine, of sorts, and he  _liked_  routine. Routine was good. It helped him remember who he was, and that certain things were completely under his control.

Logic, organisation, order…

_Well._

Looking around at the kitchen before him, he could not exactly see much of any of that.  _Order?_  Who was he kidding?

Ingredients covered every surface, while the sink behind him was piled high with evidence of his previous failed attempts throughout the morning. The heat from the oven beside him was starting to frustrate him, and the way the light shone through the window across the room in just the right way so that it caught his eye every few seconds was beginning to make him feel anxious, seeming to be reminding him that the hour was getting later, and that Ariela would surely soon be awake.

He had yet to even manage to produce a batter worth trying to cook. The whole morning was a disaster.

“Aloth?” A little voice from the doorway asked, and he started at the interruption to his thoughts, turning to find a sleepy looking Vela, still dressed in her nightclothes, regarding him with an expression of confusion. “What’s going on?”

“I… wanted to surprise Ariela.”

“Surprise Mama… with what? A messy kitchen?” Vela’s expression turned bemused, and she tilted her head as she looked back and forth between the mountain of dishes in the sink and the flour-covered Aedyran wizard standing in the centre with an expression that he could only imagine looked completely dejected.

“With a birthday cake. But I think that I may have gotten in over my head.”

Perhaps his first mistake had been thinking that he could do any of this alone. The recipe book that he had borrowed from Ariela’s collection was filled with annotations; little adjustments and additions in both her hand and Vela’s, changes that the pair had made to the instructions over the years as they perfected the process to produce tasty food items. They had been difficult for him to track, some of them crossed out and re-written multiple times, whilst many were scrawled and almost illegible in the narrow margins of the text, but  _Vela_ … Vela had helped to make those changes.

She might know how to follow the recipe.

“Even Mama and me don’t make this much mess when we bake!” Vela informed, as the smile spread wider, and a giggle threatened to break free of her cheeky face. “Would you like some help?”

“Yes!” Aloth responded, far too quickly and enthusiatically than was probably proper, and then cleared his throat, attempting to project a more composed image. Not that there was anything about his surroundings that suggested composure. Vela was young, but she wasn’t completely oblivious, and it wasn’t as though she wouldn’t be able to tell that he had been floundering alone. “I mean… if you would like to, then I would certainly appreciate your assistance.”

Glancing surreptitiously back out of the door and along the corridor, Vela stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “Yep, I love to bake! And Mama’s sleeping right now, I think, so maybe we can still surprise her.”

_Well, isnae that a bit o’ guid luck. Mebbe the Little Lass connes whit to dae better'n ye._

“Ariela has made a lot of notes on the recipe.” Aloth informed with a pained expression as he glanced back down at the book left open on the counter beside him. “I have to admit that it’s been a little difficult to follow.”

Padding closer, Vela pushed up on her tiptoes to peer over the edge of counter, running her eyes across the page of the recipe book. “Oh, this one’s our favourite! Hmmm… I  _think_  that I know how to make this one.” Looking back and forth between the recipe on the page, and the remainder of the ingredients that surrounded the kitchen, she nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think we’ve got everything that we need. Come on then, Aloth! Let’s make Mama the best birthday cake ever!”

–

Vela’s baking process was somewhat chaotic for Aloth’s tastes; pouring and sprinkling ingredients randomly into the mixing bowl without so much as a proper measurement, all while muttering things such as ‘I think this one’ and 'that seems right’, as if  _trying_  to set him even more on edge. He handed her what she asked for, assisting her with whatever she needed even despite his dubious expression, knowing that realistically it was not as if she could possibly do a worse job than he had been doing all morning. But he had to admit that the young girl projected a confidence that he had not felt during his solo efforts at baking- a surety in her eyes and movements as she worked that inspired complete faith, and that he couldn’t help but suspect that she had learned from Ariela over the years- and by the time that he was carefully placing their completed batter in the oven, he found that he was feeling rather positive about what the outcome would be.

“Well, I think that’s going to be a great cake!” Vela informed with a bright smile, as she observed him closing the oven door from a safe distance away. “I bet Mama will love it!”

“I certainly hope so.” Aloth admitted, a concerned expression overtaking his face once again. It was the first time that Ariela had celebrated her birthday in his presence since he had known her, and now they were no longer just friends, but lovers. He wanted to do everything that he could do give her a good day. The  _best_  day. She certainly deserved it; deserved to be pampered and spoiled. To be  _loved_ , wholly and completely, with even half as much a passion as she loved every other person that she met. 

She projected so much good into the world, he knew, and it was the least he could do to try and give some good back to her.

“She’ll love it, Aloth.” Vela assured, nodding wisely. “She’ll love it because we made it!”

“Vela?” Ariela’s voice called out from the corridor just outside, and Aloth’s response died in his throat. “Honeybee, what are you doing in the kitchen?”

“Oh no!” Vela sprung forwards as the handle of the kitchen’s entrance pushed down, throwing herself against the door in an attempt to slow down her mother’s entry, her eyes falling on the pile of dirty dishes with a horrified expression.

Ariela continued to push her way in, oblivious to her daughter’s attempts to stop her, and rounded the doorway with a deeply concerned expression. “Vela, you really shouldn’t be in the kitchen alone- oh!" 

Even still in her plain nightdress, with her hair a mess and tired eyes, Aloth couldn’t help but think that she was the most beautiful woman in Eora, and those words flashed through his mind- not for the first time- as his lover’s eyes fell onto him with happy surprise. The slightest smile began to form on her face as she laid eyes on him, until her gaze flickered past him, taking in the state of the kitchen.

"Um… Darling? What happened to the kitchen?”

“It’s a surprise!” Vela announced, loudly, before grabbing onto her mother’s hand and tugging her back towards the door. “C'mon, Mama, let’s go open your presents!”

As she was unceremoniously pulled back out of the kitchen by a particularly determined Vela, Ariela’s eyes worked their way back over the room, and for just a moment, Aloth was sure that he noticed the vague pinkish glow that he had come to associate with her cipher abilities light up around her. And then she smiled; a slow, knowing smile that worked its way across her face and filled her eyes full of love. 

And as those eyes fell once more back onto him, in the second before she disappeared from the room, he felt her voice echo through his mind:

_I love you, Darling. Thank you._


End file.
